Google on the iPhone is all ears

Google is updating its iPhone application perhaps as early as today to allow users to enter search terms and even longer questions by voice. It’s not a unique ability considering Yahoo is doing it with its recently released oneSearch with Voice product and Microsoft has its Tellme service.

But Google claims to be better than its competitors because it can analyze huge amounts of data and return accurate results, even for questions that are more complicated than simple searches. A user can ask for the best pizza restaurants in Noe Valley and get accurate results, according to a story by the New York Times. A nice touch when you’re in the app is that you can activate a voice search by just lifting the phone to your head and Google will go into voice mode.

The move to voice searches is a natural step for any company that wants to play in the still emerging world of mobile search. It’s not enough to offer searches by text but to be really mobile, you need to be able to speak to your phone.

So far, the services are still evolving. The ability to just speak to a phone and have it understand your natural speech patterns is still a bit elusive though Google seems to think it’s got a step up on that. But ultimately, companies want to make it easy for people to enter searches so they can, in turn, make money off of search advertising.

If you can throw in location-aware results, local businesses can also get in the act by advertising — at a premium — for searches that fit their profile. That’s been a goal for carriers, search companies and voice-technology enablers for some time and is only now potentially becoming a reality.

I haven’t been able to try it out quite yet because it doesn’t seem available. But I’ll report back with first impressions soon.